Incentives, Infographics and Moral Moments – takeaways from TLT symposium 2018

As it seems to be the case for many of us, I also went to the TLT symposium with not really knowing what to expect. Maybe it was a good thing not expecting much but keeping an open mind as I was positively surprised and got some great new tools for my teaching toolbox and ton of inspiring thoughts and ideas and wise advise for me not only as a potential future educator but as a human being as well.

Firstly (after a pleasant breakfast!), I had the pleasure to listen to the keynote speech by Stephen Dubner. One of my first thoughts was: it is an amazing gift to be able to talk about seemingly uninteresting and unrelated things in a way that catches the listener’s curiosity and leaves them with a sense that one has heard something they haven’t heard before and realized something new about this world. It is wonderful to get to sit back and let someone tell you stories about human behavior and how it affects the changes we are trying to implement into this world. That really speaks to our role as educators as well: it is important to realize that the change we are trying to make (get our students to learn) is very much affected by the fact that we’re all human beings and change is difficult for us. Hence, we should try to find ways to go around that reluctance for change, be creative, and constantly challenge ourselves as teachers to change as well. In the same lines he also talked about how it is important to understand the incentives and how they work in order to encourage people to change their behavior. (And this relates nicely to our discussions in class about motivation as well, doesn’t it!?)

The first session I attended was titled ‘Infographics to Keep and Sustain Engagement’. Hearing educators from different disciplines talk about their experiences on how to improve teaching with technology and new approaches to learning was inspiring and informative. First presenter, Amy Kuntz, told how to use infographics in creating syllabus and lesson plans. With infographics it is easy to build the syllabus in a way that actually encourages the students to read and use it. She also mentioned how in today’s society our attention span is getting shorter and shorter and technology is making us more visually inclined. This is where infographics come in handy and takes advantage of visuality and need for concise information in modern-day students.

The next two speakers, Gina Gray and Beth Michalec, shared their experiences in using infographics as a course assignment. Instead of having students do a “traditional” PowerPoint presentation, they create a one-page infographic that can be presented as a “gallery-walk” type of presentation or a more traditional in front of class presentation. Gina Gray mentioned how this assignment could be something students can use beyond the specific class, for example as a part of a resume. Creating an infographic will allow the students to use and improve several different competences: factual knowledge on the topic they are working on but also visual and technology-based skills. Infographics is definitely something I will add to my teaching toolbox! Here’s a link to resources provided by the presenters.

The second session I went to was my favorite of the day and left the most effective impression with me. I chose the session based on the title ‘“But what if I cry?” The Moral Moments Project: Using technology, community, and contemplation as gateways to empathy and compassion’, which I found very intriguing. The session was held by the core team of the project: Susan Russel, Crystal Ramsay, Zach Lonsinger and Dan Getz. I find it difficult to put this session in concise writing (I wish I had time to create an infographic about it), so I decided to share my notes from the session with you:

•       Identify words individually
•        Transcend the categories à what’s in-between à think and define, definition – personal
•        Find level ground with people from different backgrounds
•        How to be a better human, connect, broad perspective
•        REACTION, REFLECTION, RESPONSE
•        Writing by hand is important allows to move from reaction to reflection!! (I loved this because writing by hand is one of my favorite things, and what I think has made humans humans, we shouldn’t forget this skill!)
•        Personal space for reacting and reflecting.
•        Engagement, encounters, investigation
•        So be it until you change it
•        Picking apart words à gives space to think, create rules
•        People tell us all the time what they believe in, we just have to listen more closely
•        Reacting is easy! Reflecting is important, lifts above the battle field of reacting. Opens up for conversations to happen.
•        Take time with what you think and listen to yourself and figure out what you believe in.
•        Connect to who you are while listening.
•        Art of a question – questions create connection, conversation, dialogue
•        How to replicate true emotion online?

Maybe these notes don’t make much sense to you, but here are my thoughts: we as educators should not forget to teach compassion, empathy and interaction. This is increasingly important with evolving technology and increasing online components of teaching, and decreasing face to face contact. It is important to connect with people, especially with the ones we think we don’t have any common ground with, whom we disagree with, who we think we don’t understand. We should be able to have the difficult and uncomfortable discussions too. And maybe instead of seeing technology as a threat to compassion and empathy it can be used as a tool – with the help of it we can connect with people all over the world. We can hear stories. We can learn. We can learn more about this world, about human nature, about ourselves. We can widen our perspective, find connection. We can understand that we all have something in common, we all are human. Every person has value. We need to allow ourselves and our students to not just react, but more importantly to reflect and respond. There needs to be space for that; space for conversation, space for thinking and forming your identity. Because when you find yourself, you can turn to other people and listen and reflect and respond. We all have a story to tell. We all have our believes to share. We should listen.

I highly recommend you to visit the project’s webpage.